4 ms·

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone think that in ten, twenty years, their "most outdated device" would be their personal computer? It's like Moore's law has be

by jckt 13y ago

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone think that in ten, twenty years, their "most outdated device" would be their personal computer? It's like Moore's law has been too kind -- just 3 years ago I don't think I would've ever had this thought. But now, IMO, the only real reason you'd need to update your PC would be for newer games. Otherwise, there really is no reason why you'd ever need more computational power than you currently have (say, mid-high range ivy bridge, decent graphics, etc). Anything more intensive that cannot be reasonably handled by your own computer, you have the cloud -- crunch large numbers, computer renders, etc. Or am I just afraid of change? Am I missing something? Do I really need to update my hardware for a better screen? Perhaps the day Wi-Fi becomes obsolete, maybe then I'd have to buy a new laptop...

GuiA 13y ago
Well, the future seems to be in ARM chips. It's quite likely that the developments in the next few years will be about building ARM processors for laptops as powerful as our current non-ARM ones. This + evolution of battery technology means that in 2020, we might have Macbook Airs roughly as powerful as our current ones (albeit with better GPUs, as that's still evolving pretty fast), but with a battery life at 20+ hours.
- SurfScore 13y ago
  Battery technology has been the primary bottleneck for technological advancement for awhile now, especially on mobile.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I got rid of all but two of my x86 machines which didn't have AES-NI. One is essentially unused, and the other is my current home theater box, to be replaced with the Late-2013 Mac Mini. AES-NI essentially makes Full Disk Encryption "free", and FDE is a minimum standard for any machine I'd use today. If iOS gets biometrics, I'd probably feel the same way about it (and fixing the imaging attack is why I upgraded ASAP off the iPhone 4 and iPad 1). If Mac hardware added real trusted boot hardware, I'd probably replace all of mine at the same time, too. So, not performance, but features.

by jckt 13y ago

GuiA 13y ago

Well, the future seems to be in ARM chips. It's quite likely that the developments in the next few years will be about building ARM processors for laptops as powerful as our current non-ARM ones. This + evolution of battery technology means that in 2020, we might have Macbook Airs roughly as powerful as our current ones (albeit with better GPUs, as that's still evolving pretty fast), but with a battery life at 20+ hours.

SurfScore 13y ago
Battery technology has been the primary bottleneck for technological advancement for awhile now, especially on mobile.
- rdl 13y ago
  I got rid of all but two of my x86 machines which didn't have AES-NI. One is essentially unused, and the other is my current home theater box, to be replaced with the Late-2013 Mac Mini. AES-NI essentially makes Full Disk Encryption "free", and FDE is a minimum standard for any machine I'd use today. If iOS gets biometrics, I'd probably feel the same way about it (and fixing the imaging attack is why I upgraded ASAP off the iPhone 4 and iPad 1). If Mac hardware added real trusted boot hardware, I'd probably replace all of mine at the same time, too. So, not performance, but features.